At 6/23/12 10:04 PM, Archawn wrote:
I spent a bit of time today preparing for the Game Jam. I set up a GoogleDoc form

Holy shit. I could not handle that level of organization. Kind of glad I'm a programmer so there's no chance of someone as organized as you sucking me up into your vortex of scheduling and documentation.

At 6/23/12 10:04 PM, Archawn wrote:
I spent a bit of time today preparing for the Game Jam. I set up a GoogleDoc form that allows project members to add tasks to a public to-do list, from which they can mark off tasks as they work. I have a feeling it's going to help with communication on my team. We'll see how it goes!

Wow that looks really good for organizing things. I'm totally gonna try that out for myself.

At 6/23/12 10:04 PM, Archawn wrote:
I spent a bit of time today preparing for the Game Jam. I set up a GoogleDoc form

Looks good!

How about using Pipeline, though, like last game jam? (pipeline.gatech.cc.edu)

Pipeline didn't work out for us in the last Jam. My teammate found it a bit cumbersome, and we just ended up using a GoogleDoc to list tasks/goals/specs. I'm hoping that my spreadsheet will be a usable alternative.

At 6/25/12 07:27 PM, CrazyRock wrote:
I still don't know what 'Kickball System' is, don't judge me, I am not from USA therefore I do not watch stuff you guys do and I have no clue what this is.

Essentially the programmers pick their teams from pool of artists, musicians, etc.
Calling it a "kickball system" is because it's kind of a common thing in elementary school. Your class goes outside, 2 captains are picked at random and then they pick out their teams for the kickball game.

I'm really looking forward to this! I'm going to do my absolute best this time around to go for a semi original concept. I've had a blast every time so far, but it seems like these jams should be an outlet for things you wouldn't otherwise do. Rather than just some generic game skinned for the theme.

Can we have a more clear explanation of the kickball system? It starts on Thursday, but when on Thursday? Programmers are supposed to just pick one teammate at a time rather than picking their whole team at once, right? Are they supposed to pick the team members in a certain order based on the job? If every programmer needs to pick a teammate before the next round starts, what happens when programmers don't show up? Is there a time limit? Will we know when each round starts and stops beforehand? If a programmer misses one round is he/she automatically disqualified?

Looking at Archawn's organization ideas, I'm curious how other people plan to communicate/collaborate with their teams. I was thinking about using a git repo, but I've been thinking that less programmatically inclined citizens are less likely to be comfortable with it. I've since been thinking about google docs, and just basic A/IM, and lastly dumping-grounds.

At 6/26/12 09:48 PM, TharosTheDragon wrote:
Can we have a more clear explanation of the kickball system? It starts on Thursday, but when on Thursday? Programmers are supposed to just pick one teammate at a time rather than picking their whole team at once, right? Are they supposed to pick the team members in a certain order based on the job? If every programmer needs to pick a teammate before the next round starts, what happens when programmers don't show up? Is there a time limit? Will we know when each round starts and stops beforehand? If a programmer misses one round is he/she automatically disqualified?

You raise a lot of valid and serious issues, and I'd like to add another. What about ninja posts, where two people post the same request at a largely similar time? This would become a huge problem unless we got in some huge irc or skype chat or something.

At 6/27/12 12:09 AM, Wallross wrote:
You raise a lot of valid and serious issues, and I'd like to add another. What about ninja posts, where two people post the same request at a largely similar time? This would become a huge problem unless we got in some huge irc or skype chat or something.

I doubt that will be a problem. Whoever posts first will get it first, since it works on a "time" basis, anyway.

At 6/27/12 12:09 AM, Wallross wrote:
You raise a lot of valid and serious issues, and I'd like to add another. What about ninja posts, where two people post the same request at a largely similar time? This would become a huge problem unless we got in some huge irc or skype chat or something.

I doubt that will be a problem. Whoever posts first will get it first, since it works on a "time" basis, anyway.

I agree. First post wins even if it's by seconds. It'll save us an argument later. I am still curious as to exactly when and how this will happen though.

At 6/26/12 04:30 PM, Goat-Man wrote:
Essentially the programmers pick their teams from pool of artists, musicians, etc.
Calling it a "kickball system" is because it's kind of a common thing in elementary school. Your class goes outside, 2 captains are picked at random and then they pick out their teams for the kickball game.

Ohhh I get it, didn't know it was called a 'kickball system' in the US though. Thanks!

Publish a TIME on thursday when the kickball choosing is starting already. FIRST COME FIRST SERVE doesn't work when nobody knows WHEN to come. C'mon! This is pretty painful so far to not know a thing...

+ There will be a thread (NG BBS) posted at midnight tonight, East Coast Time. (11:00pm Central.) (I'll post a link in this thread and the main newspost.)
+ In the thread all the participants for the Game Jam will be listed under their appropriate jobs.
+ The programmers will each post their picks (1 artist, 1 musician, 1 wildcard). When I say "first come first serve" I mean whoever posts first gets to make their first pick. (I will be trying to update the pool of people every page.)
+ After each programmer has made their first picks, we will have another round of picking. We'll keep doing rounds of picking until every person who signed up has a team.
+ I'm sure we'll get to a point where there will be a programmer who signed up who hasn't come online to make his pick, and it'll be holding up the next round of picks. If it comes to that, we'll give the missing people an hour to make their picks and then we'll skip them.

When I was writing up the Jam stuff, I really wanted to have all the programmers meet up on some chat and make their picks one at a time, but I was reminded that most of us can barely expect all the people who signed up to make it to first day of jams, it'd be a disaster waiting to happen to expect all the programmers to show up at a specific time on a thread or chat.

Lemme know if you guys have any questions or comments.

At 6/26/12 11:50 PM, Pikanjo wrote:
Looking at Archawn's organization ideas, I'm curious how other people plan to communicate/collaborate with their teams...

I'm going to push for my team to use Google Plus this time as I've grown to like it a lot.

At 6/27/12 02:10 PM, AustinBreed wrote:
I'm going to push for my team to use Google Plus this time as I've grown to like it a lot.

Something you could try is setup a Google Doc with view only priveledges and have a spreadsheet of everyone with tabs on their role of programmer / artist / wildcard and then as people fall into teams then just move around the cells and maybe color code em or what not so you can quickly see which people are taken and where they were adopted into. Google Doc lets you view edits live so itd be kind of neat i think instead of having to wait for a new page for an update.

So nothing is required of artists in the team creation process? Cause I won't be here tomorrow, but will be here for the Space Jam itself. Don't wanna be left out because I was a no-show when asked to verify something or whatever.